“They were Presbyterians?” Vance seemed shocked. He had really put his heart into the Amish theory.

“Please call,” Theo said. He left the EMTs and went out through the kitchen to his Volvo, where he switched the radio over to the frequency used by the San Junipero Sheriff’s Department, then sat there staring at the mike. He was going to catch hell from Sheriff Burton for this.

“North Coast is yours, Theo. All yours,” the sheriff had said. My deputies will pick up suspects, answer robbery calls, and let the Highway Patrol investigate traffic accidents on Highway 1, that’s it. Otherwise, you keep them out of Pine Cove and your little secret stays secret.“ Theo was forty-one years old and he still felt as if he was hiding from the junior high vice principal, laying low. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen in Pine Cove. Nothing happened in Pine Cove.

He took a quick hit from his Sneaky Pete smokeless pot pipe before keying the mike and calling in the deputies.

Joseph Leander sat on the edge of the bed. He’d changed out of his pajamas into a blue business suit, but his thinning hair was still sticking out in sleep horns on the side. He was thirty-five, sandy-haired, thin but working on a paunch that strained the buttons of his vest. Theo sat across from him on a chair, holding a notepad. They could hear the sheriff’s deputies moving around downstairs.

“I can’t believe she’d do this,” Joseph said.

Theo reached over and squeezed the grieving husband’s bicep. “I’m really sorry, Joe. She didn’t say anything that would indicate she was thinking about doing something like this?”

Joseph shook his head without looking up. “She was getting better. Val had given her some pills and she seemed to be getting better.”

“She was seeing Valerie Riordan?” Theo asked. Valerie was Pine Cove’s only clinical psychiatrist. “Do you know what kind of pills?”